Sources of Food

Food is the fuel of life. Without food, humans cannot survive. So it is important for us to know where our food actually comes from. Like did you know that cake is actually made from food that comes from plants? Let us learn more about sources of food.

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Sources of Food

Well, there are two sources of food – plants and animals. All of the food we eat comes from either of these two. The processed food we eat in our daily lives (like chips, cakes, pizzas, sandwiches etc) is a combination of various ingredients that are sourced from either plants or animals. Let’s take a look at both.

Plants as a Source of Food

Much of the food we eat comes from plants, trees, crops, bushes, leaves and sometimes even roots. The most obvious examples of the foods we source from plants are fruits and vegetables. All of the fruits and vegetables grow on plants.

Another such example of food from plants are crops. These are rice, wheat, maize, millets, barley etc. which are the seeds of the crop plants. After we grom them, they are harvested. The majority of processed food like flour, bread, biscuits etc we consume is sourced from crop plants.

Now those animals who only eat food obtained from plants are known as herbivores. Some examples are cows, zebras, hippos, giraffes, buffalos etc. Then humans who only rely on foods from plants are vegetarians. Let us take at examples of some foods we get from plants and their different parts

• Fruits: Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Mangoes
• Leaves: Spinach, Coriander, Kale, Lettuce
• Root: Potato, Carrots, Turnips
• Seeds: Rice, wheat, maize, nuts (peanuts, almonds)

Animals as a Source of Food

Not all of our food comes from plants. A good portion of the food we eat comes from animals, mostly cattle. Cattle are farmed animals, which are specifically raised to be butchered for our food requirements. There are a few animals that are hunted (killed in their natural habitat) like deer or rabbits or even kangaroos (especially in Australia).

Some examples of such meat and their sources are

• Chicken (poultry)
• Bacon/pork which comes from pigs
• Mutton which is from lambs
• Venison from deer
• Beef from cows and buffalos
• Chevon which is goat meat

Another source of food is seafood. This is fishes and other sea creatures like crabs, lobsters, oysters etc that we catch. They too are consumed by humans and are an important source of food in coastal regions especially.

Then we come to the dairy products. This is milk, curd, cream, cheese, butter, eggs etc. These are also sources of food we get from animals. All of these are made from milk and/or eggs which comes from animals such as cows, buffalos, goats etc. Honey is also another food we get from animals, namely bees.

The animals which eat other animals are carnivores like lions, tigers, leopards etc. And an animal that eats both animals and plants are omnivores like dogs and cats. People who consume meat or fish are generalized as non-vegetarians.

Solved Question for You

Question: Where do we get sugar from?

Answer: Sugar is another food that we get from plants. Sugar is a product when we process sugarcane (which is a plant). The juice is extracted from the sugarcane and then boiled to form a thick syrup. This syrup is then crystallized to give us sugar crystals.